Met up to shoot more promotional stills for Michael Leviton’s newest band, The New Jerk Times. We had several ideas to work with in his apartment and also shot outside on his fire escape and then at an adorable yet overpriced diner uptown (though sadly they did not have the old-fashioned shaped milkshake glass as we had hoped!) Here are a few favorites…
i love this one… my only regret is that we didn’t take out the A/C from the window… but seriously, too much hassle! i suppose i could photoshop it out if i was really intent on fixing that, but my eye goes from his face to his reflection to the book/records/pipe area and back in a triangle so it doesn’t seem to be too distracting.
M wasn’t so sure about the foot/size/angle effect, but i kind of like it… it’s clear that this is shot from below so I don’t think it creates any confusion for the viewer that his feet are larger than normal in the foreground here. Always curious for visitor reactions!
This weekend I shot bridal fashions in the studio with a great team– we were creating a lookbook for the custom wedding gown designer Courtney Brooke Yates. To fill out the shoot we brought in Holly Slayton to match her gorgeous birdcage veils and cocktail pieces with the gowns Courtney has created. Deepa Das (MUA) and Oryana Quintero filled out my team. We shot a number of gowns and lots of new pieces from Holly– it was a long day but lots of fun. Check out some of my favorites, rendered here with some of my stylistic processing (don’t worry, Courtney, your disc will have everything in straight color to show the exact fabric colors, i just couldn’t resist playing).
Last weekend I shot a set of publicity images with up and coming songstress Christina B for her upcoming album release. The title will be “the spins” and though it is not available yet you can hear some of her other music on her myspace page and download her previous EP here on her website. I really like her music so it was a thrill to shoot with her in my studio. During our shoot we utilized a mini trampoline, a long strip of gold foil/wrap, and my fantastic little bubble machine! This shoot was logs of fun and I love what we got. Check out my favorites below.
Unfortunately this musician did not have any sign saying his name and was not selling cd’s or anything… not even a postcard there to take with his myspace page. He was playing violin and singing (simultaneously! not an easy feat!) on the L train platform at bedford ave last night. I don’t know how to describe the music but it was quite good. I hope I see him playing again somewhere.
Last Wednesday I went to see a talk at the New York Society for Ethical Culture featuring two of my heroes, Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman (host of Democracy Now, perhaps the most important independant media in the U.S.), along with a new up and coming author, Raj Patel. It was to be a talk about progressive activism and it’s difficulties in the current atmosphere, and though it wandered about all over the place (Haiti was a big focus, having just had their earthquake) it was quite good and I was really just thrilled to see Naomi Klein speak in person. She’s got to be one of the most dynamite nonfiction authors/journalists/activists/”pundits” of the modern era. If you are interested I highly recommend reading The Shock Doctrine. Here are some shots I took during the talk, the last of which shows the standing ovation they received…
Over Thanksgiving Keith and I got word of a midnight sales event at the Philadelphia outlets (not far from where we were staying with his parents in PA)… I thought it would be a neat thing to try and do some night photography and capture the very serious shopping going on — it was, after all, a Black Friday sale. So we drove out there at about 11:30pm and walked around. It was odd– the crowds were big, the sales were (some of them) pretty good, and it all seemed disappointingly very normal. We stayed until 3:30 am and it felt like 6pm somehow. It was difficult to get the sort of shots I had hoped for - honestly i was hoping to capture people elbowing eachother in vicious competition for on-sale items)– but I did get some images I like. Everyone was very nice and patient. The only thing out of the ordinary was the time of day and the fact that there were long lines to get into some of the more popular outlets.
Note below the smoky stuff (what is that stuff? vapor?) which is coming from a nearby nuclear power plant.
This is a short series I produced while on Thankgiving break… On the way from picking us up at the Philadelphia station, my mother-in-law needed to stop and pick up a few things for the big feast… It was a beautifully foggy night and I knew as soon as we pulled into the parking lot that I would much prefer to walk around outside and make some photographs rather than go in and browse the tofurkey selections! This is one of those monstrous new supermarkets that sits in the middle of a pre-planned shopping center designed to create the illusion of an actual town– complete with sidewalks, fake phonebooths and benches,etc. The supermarket is gigantic– wide-aisled, etc.. and the only part of the ‘village’ that is complete. I would have liked to go back during the day and photograph the rest of the complex in mid-construction but of course we were only there for thanksgiving and there was no time for such shenanigans. Perhaps over the Christmas break i will have an opportunity to shoot the rest of this place– though i would be suprised if i didn’t get kicked out just for taking pictures. It is, after all, private property — though it is masquerading as ‘public space’.
At 4 months and change, this baby Sam is adorable– smiling a lot, calm and happy, ready for his closeup! Check out my favorites from my shoot with him and his family this Saturday.
This weekend I shot with Michael Leviton, of The New Jerk Times– a band that is just about to record and perhaps release a record (or a series of singles more likely). See one of their songs here. I’ve shot Michael on a number of occasions but this time I got some of my favorite images of him. Check out my favorites below:
Last night my friend Oliver was in town on business and invited me to join him in a rare opportunity: we met Al Gore! A hedge fund called Generation which Al is on the board for (?) was having a small party at One Bryant Park– the Bank of America Tower (a brand new skyscraper and incredibly green building with unbeleivable views of the city– see below) and Al was the guest of honor.
We got free signed copies of Our Choice and heard Al Gore speak to this room of no doubt very rich men about the issue he’s most passionate about: climate change. What was particularly neat was that we were hearing him speak here in NYC while in Copenhagen the worlds leaders are gathering to make… or NOT make progress together in addressing our challenges in this area. He didn’t seem hopeful that this conference would yield the results we need… but stated his faith that we can still prevent environmental catastrophe. I sure hope so.
By the way, there were so few women in this room it was a little eerie. And yes, I was pretty much the only person who took pictures. No flash of course… It was a highly sophisticated affair.
We did get our opportunity to shake his hand and talk for a few minutes…
After getting Oliver’s picture with him and listening to them converse about sustainable investments for a bit I asked him politely if he’s considered taking a bolder stance on the food system and calling for a boycott of the industrial farming system, which as he is well aware is a far greater source of environmental damage: methane from manure on feedlots (20x worse than Co2)- which is NOT put through a sewer/filtration system but runs off into surrounding environs/water… and let’s not even get into the detrimental effects of the use of antibiotics in meat-production. Anyway he said that he had done so (taken a stand) in this book and flipped to a few pages to show me. I had just seen him eat several bites of meat and I know this man is not a vegetarian..I mean, this is the meat platter at the party…
I asked him about this issue and he assured me that if I read the new book and still didn’t think he’d addressed it then I should let him know (easier said than done, Al!). I told him I was thrilled to hear that and that I looked forward to reading the book. Frankly I am not sure that a chapter in a book which will most likely only be read by the people who are already on board is making much use of his role as a national figure of leadership in the fight to save the planet from environmental catastrophe– which is the role he wants, no? I guess what I really he he would do is to go on TV and call on Americans to stop eating industrially produced meat and start supporting their local and organic farms… Or he could make a sequel documentary- with the same kind of vigor that he addressed carbon emissions from cars and electricity use in the home. It’s clear that the plethora of books written by random vegetarians (try Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book) are not going to reach the larger public. Even that movie Food, Inc., –which was a pretty good attempt at reaching a wider audience– let’s face it, was probably not seen by anyone who wasn’t already very interested in the issues. We need more mainstream media coverage of the facts, which are outrageous. Al Gore has the credibility and position to get the job done– and if most people actually understood how harmful to the environment and wasteful of resources the industrial meat farms are… one must hope they’d be willing to embrace a boycott. Which is essentially what being vegetarian is for those of us who reject animal products out of environmental concern… a refusal to participate in supporting an industry one believes ought to change its practices in order to earn your business.
